Virtual currency: dream or reality?

A new virtual currency has been found, as well as Bitcoin. It’s attracting attention from giants in finance and technology. It’s name? Ethereum.

Ethereum system is built on a blockchain in which every transaction is recorded. It allows the exchange of money in a more cheaply and quickly way. It is believed to do much more than Bitcoin. Its software also provides a way to create online markets and smart contracts (programmable transactions). This system is quite complicated, infact even the farmers found it difficult to describe it in order to sell it directly to consumers. Fortunately, a specific application is in development for this purpose.

IBM is experimenting with Ethereum as a way to control real world objects (Internet of things). Microsoft is also using this system for several project. Many corporations have already created their own Ethereum network, independentAi??of the public system.Ai?? Most major banks have expressed an interest in using them for their trading activities.

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum was released in a more transparent way: infact, it was created by a 21-year-old Russian-Canadian man, whose name is Vitalik Buterin. A team of 7 co-funders helped Mr. Buterin to work on the software. They raised $18 million in 2014 already.

Like Bitcoin, Ethereum has succeded by attracting a huge network of followers who started to support the software somehow. Anyway, there are some computer sciences who think that it is far from a sure thing and that Bitcoin is still the safest bet. But this system is new, we should wait some years! Everything depends if any real markets develop around it.

May it be the future way of gaining money available to everyone? Let’s see…we’ll see who is going to survive.